


Behind the scenes, beyond the canon

by HueyNomure



Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: Gen, Magic: Expanded Multiverse, Minor Character Death, No M:tG canon characters, Serial Killers, mana swap, prompt-generated, suspicious village
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 19:51:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14432871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HueyNomure/pseuds/HueyNomure
Summary: Collection of non-canon short stories and ideas, some of them from prompts, starring my Magic: Expanded Multiverse characters.





	1. Fishy Village

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> RavenoftheBlack asked: One of your characters encounters a small, isolated village whose inhabitants are very friendly... _suspiciously_ friendly, even. How do they handle it, and what ends up happening?

#### Sharaka

When Sharaka arrives in the small village of Acroshe after a baffling and unpleasant encounter with a fire-breating plant creature she's surprised by all the attentions the vedalken give her. They all but fight for the honor of showing her around, asking her all kinds of questions. She's wary, but she can't smell nothing out of place, so she just tries to be as concise as she can to try avoiding the planeswalking topic. The village's innkeeper apparently wins the honor of offering her dinner after a lengthy discussion. Sharaka is still wary of this over-the-top hospitality, but she's hungry as hell so she indulges him.

The dinner is more like a feast: a dozen different fishes, three overflowing fruit bowls, five kinds of greens each prepared in two or three ways, mutton with four sauces and a surprisingly tasty insect-based dish are set on her table. She can't smell drugs nor poisons, but to be sure she mostly sticks with the dishes with more familiar ingredients; she still cleans up more than half the plates before her, feeling the fullest she has been since leaving Thamirelk. She knows that for the inn of such a small village - and the average portions the other vedalken are eating - it must have been a significant hit, but the innkeeper's grinning ear to ear as she takes empty plates away and brings her fresh water and a selection of fruit juices - Sharaka cautiously refuses every alcoholic drink. When he offers her a room she accepts gladly, as the idea of finding another shelter now is not alluring at all.

Sharaka checks the whole room for magic, traps and secret passages, finding nothing. She closes the shutters, draws the curtains shut and drags the old four-poster against them so the window can't be opened. The door is locked with two turns of key. Three. Then she takes the key and melts the lock shut for good measure. Still, sleep doesn't come easy. Eventually she cuts the lock open and goes for a walk.

She finds the innkeeper on his fours, looking for something under the chair Sharaka had used earlier and cursing under his breath; she sneaks closer, and watches the innkeeper pick up one of Sharaka's old scales that had been scorched by the plant earlier, cursing when the thin brittle scale breaks in two. Sharaka steps on the small of his back, pinning the lanky man on the ground, and demands answers.

The innkeeper explains that in Acroshe status is based on knowledge: the more secrets one hoards, the more respect they're owed. Sharaka is the first viashino they have seen, so she's a veritable well of new information; anything, from her name to her taste in fish, is a precious little secret that can boost one's standing in the small village. Her scales could be studied to know more about her metabolism, and they would be a great trophy to boot. His smell vouches for his goodwill. After a quick negotiation, an amused and bewildered Sharaka sells the "fresh" molting scales still attached to her skin for a surprising amount of gold and returns in her room, where she finally falls asleep after welding the lock shut.

The next morning she can't quite explain why she fetches a chalk from her backpack and traces the Itkerai rune on a wall; she leaves some of the vedalken's gold on the nightstand, hopefully enough to buy a new lock, and 'walks away.

* * *

#### Elphimas

Elphimas would stumble in a village of ratfolk cultists completely unaware of their intentions; Elphimas casually refuses the drugged food with innocent remarks about the vedalken disliking opium milk, and warns the cultists about the traps the ratfolk have set themselves. Elphimas eventually leaves promising they'll bring back some help for the demonic infestation they're having.

* * *

#### Kalit

Kalit doesn't buy it and casually tortures the first villager he finds alone. He misunderstands the innocent explanation the villager gives him and proceeds wiping the whole village from the map. The end.

* * *

#### Snipe

Snipe sneaks around the village for hours; when he identifies the source of the dangerous aura, he sneaks into the city hall and kidnaps one of the elders, who is interrogated far away from hearing distance of the village. Gaining no definite answer, he then kidnaps and questions each elder until one of them tries to mind control him. After a much more bloody round of questions, the evil elder is promptly executed. He then makes a thopter guide the elders back to the village while he searches the town hall again and the evil elder's house, taking away any suspect artifact for safekeeping and burning the house down just to be sure.

* * *

#### Fayn

A small friendly village with a hose is just what Fayn needed after a long expedition in the Wastelands; unfortunately, the hosers refuse to give her findings back after their magic radiations are suppressed, saying they're not worth much anyway and they are the payment for the treatment. Fayn sees the greed in the hosers' eyes, and knows that one of the books she bartered with the Spider Queen is a priceless copy of the Artificer's Manual, the basis for understanding any other technical volume written in the Ancient Tongue. She tries to argue, but the hosers' polite patronizing makes her silent and burning with anger. She surrenders her findings with a smile and leaves, just to sneak back in the building with the help of her magic. As soon as the hosers lose sight of the book and a few other precious items she retrieves them, then she rigs the buildings with Suckwave explosives and makes it collapse on the hosers' heads. She leaves the village unseen, humming under her breath.

* * *

#### Ungar

We should have suspected, as a sickly man wandered in our town mere hours before the offering. I'm sure Sister Suria rejoyced as soon as she learned of him, that cowardly woman. Being offered to the Brimstone Crown is a rare honor; it's a pity that I, as the chronicler and His herald, can't be chosen. The sickly man was invited in and offered the customary Cleansing Meal, purifying him from the angelic corruption and enrapturing him in glorious visions for a few hours. The sickly man fell unconscious from his chair almost immediately, holding his cane to his chest.

We should have suspected, as the people tasked with preparing him for the offering swooned when they touched the cane's handle. We should have taken him prisoner and investigated further, but Brother Taranis convinced the others to just trace the symbols on his face, hands and feet, leaving him fully clothed. Small-minded man, such treacherous conduct just to prolong his wife's wretched existence on this angel-ridden plane. Taranis also make sure I was kept in the dark until of this until the sickly man was consecrated, so that he had to be offered on pain of His wrath.

We should have suspected, as the sickly man woke up smiling when He sent His Avatar to claim the offering. The sickly man stood up, insolently locking eyes with the Avatar, and spoke with his querulous, despicable voice.

"Aw, you shouldn't have."

The sickly man's eyes then turned pitch black, and the Avatar stopped His advance. The sickly man showed Him his empty hand, as if expecting something. Terror gripped our guts as He ripped His Crown from His head, and bleeding profusely He gave It to the sickly man, who swiftly - and blasphemously - crowned himself. The sickly man leveled his cane at Him, and the cane's crystal handle spewed a black cloud that consumed His majestic appearance whole; he waved his free hand, and His Grey Flames etched new symbols along the ritual circles. We were standing like statues - how could we prevail when His Avatar had been so swiftly desecrated? He spoke again.

"I'm afraid I have a last favor to ask you all."

We should have suspected. Now it's too late, as we're trapped in this absolute darkness. I can't feel my body. Whenever I pray to Him to smite the sickly man, I hear terrible screams in the distance, and unfaithful fears plague my mind. The cries of my brethren haunt me at all hours.

My only satisfaction is knowing that Suria and Taranis are paying for their cowardice and pettiness.


	2. Rising Heat (No Mending)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Suppose that the Mending never happened. What would our characters be like then?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Won't make sense without having read Another Day, Another Fight.

Nive was running for her life.

Sophron’s property had been haunted by a grave silence since Sharaka’s demise. While Nive had realized the viashino’s ultimate desire at the last possible moment, encasing herself in a column of ice, almost anyone in the arena had died; the luckiest had croaked immediately, the others had simmered for days before the horrifying burns could claim their lives. Even Sophron, the most powerful ice mage south of the Frostrings, had been on the brink of death for days, and he was still unable to sit up.

That morning she had walked to his quarters to look in the vedalken’s eyes and decide upon his life. If Sophron wasn’t able to show regret for his actions, for the decisions who had brought death and sorrow in so many houses, she would have frozen his heart solid. A fitting death, an act Nive had contemplated for days. Neither Mark nor Lucius were guarding the door, but she hadn’t paid much mind to it. Nive’s attention was definitely piqued by the blistering hot wind that howled through the open door.

Nive’s heart had skipped a beat when she had seen Sharaka towering above Sophron, regarding him with pure contempt as her image trembled for the absurd heat.

Sharaka had spat on the vedalken, setting the whole bed on fire.

The viashino had breathed in deeply as she turned toward Nive, and the human’s brain had shut down in terror.

Then, a spark of recognition in Sharaka’s shining eyes.

“Run.”

Nive obeyed.

She was running down the main road, past the fools who were gathering to gawk at the flaming building, when she noticed an onlooking horseman. He was dressed like a noble, but more importantly, he was atop of a splendid horse. Nive grabbed the reins of the horse; the noble was about to be outraged, surely, but she froze his face and shoved him down as he flailed.

Nive jumped on the now nervous horse, breathless, and realized she had no idea on how to ride. Panicking, she conjured a spiked ice rod and brought it down on the horse’s rump as hard as she could. The horse started galloping, and staying on the saddle occupied the entirety of Nive’s mind. She didn’t notice the guards who tried to stop her at the city gates.

She barely noticed the heatwave as the whole city of Augusta was engulfed in a titanic column of fire.

It was only the next morning, as Nive woke up aching all over but still astride an exhausted horse, that she thought of her brother.


	3. A New Tribe (Mana Shift)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What if Sharaka's main color of mana was Black?

Hisk was _not_ happy to be the commander’s pick to watch over the young. Orders were orders, sure, and proper warriors and caretakers were respectively resting and working tirelessly after four days of skirmishes with the humans. On the other hand, he was sure that being in the same tent with little Sharaka after he had culled her mother Tharna not five hours ago was the worst thing for both of them.

Again, it wasn’t because the caretakers were wrong. They rarely were, and there had been no real choice. Not after Tharna had almost strangled her own daughter for snoring. “I thought I was still fighting,” Tharna had explained between desperate sobs, “I thought she was a growling warhound. Spirits, my poor Sharaka… It won’t happen again, please, let me see her… please, I’m begging you…”

It didn’t happen again: Tharna had been chained in the infirmary ever since. She was allowed to see Sharaka, however the girl had sworn it was all her fault and had begged the guards to chain her instead. Three days later, the hundred armed humans had reached their tribe. A week later, the leaders had declared martial law and the caretakers had drawn the culling list. From the elders, the wounded and the ill, the matriarch had chosen the ones whose future contribute to the tribe didn’t compensate the time, effort and supplies needed to look after them. Fortunately, it hadn’t come to smashing eggs. A hard choice, but necessary: no point in letting a whole tribe get slaughtered when the majority could survive. Hisk, a shaman, was chosen to swing the axe as well as officiating the Returns to the Flame. He was more a scholar than a mage, so it wasn’t like he could be useful to the actual fighting.

But the night after a culling had always been hard for Hisk, and the mumbling of the sleeping hatchlings sounded like the whispers of the culled he heard in his nightmares. He tried to focus on the soft snoring sounds, but those reminded him of Sharaka, who in return reminded him of Tharna. He grimaced, then stood up and walked around the messy tangle of sleeping hatchlings trying to distract himself.

Despite his best efforts, Hisk found himself looking for Sharaka. His eyes found her awake, whispering to another hatchling; Hisk tried not to stare at her, but a corner of his mind focused on her whispers. He couldn’t make out the exact words, but he noticed with a start that he couldn’t hear the other half of the conversation either.

He made another round and stopped behind Sharaka, walking slowly not to be heard. The hatchling Sharaka was apparently whispering to was sleeping soundly. Yet, she stopped as if she was waiting for their reply. Before Hisk could decide whether to disturb her, Sharaka propped herself up on an elbow and stared right at him. He had forgot how good her snout was.

“Anything wrong?” Sharaka asked levelly.

Hisk hesitated; he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer to his next question. “Who are you talking to?”

Sharaka glanced at the sleeping hatchling next to her, then stared at Hisk, perplexed. “Mom. Will you stop eavesdropping now?”

Hisk sighed. “Look, it’s late and I get that you don’t want to talk to me about this, but…”

Sharaka startled and her posture changed into a very familiar one. “ _Go take a hike, Hisk. Haven’t you done enough for one day?_ ” The girl suddenly sounded strangely… adult.

A cold shiver ran down Hisk’s spine as he recognized the voice. “Tharna?”

“ _Good guess, Hissie. Don’t you believe me?_ ” She asked with a mischievous grin. “ _Do I have to list the places where you like to be licked, darling?_ ” The girl shook her head, and Sharaka made a face. “Mom, that was gross… alright, I forgive you.”

Hisk unconsciously stepped back. He opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“I’m sorry I can’t do this for long, I literally just figured it out,” Sharaka continued innocently. “Mom’s not angry, though, she just wanted to prank you.” The girl chuckled.

Hisk snapped and ran. Before he could get out of the tent, something painful hit him in the chest and yanked him toward Sharaka. He saw his body fall on the ground, lifeless.

“Don’t go, please!” Sharaka begged, her arms outstretched as if asking for a hug. “Mom wants to chat.”

* * *

Rohin cleared her throat. She had been a judge for more than forty years, but this was the first time she had to call for an execution. Not that the case was debatable.

“Sisters and brothers of the Laku tribe, this is the day where a threat to all viashino meets its end,” she began with her Judge tone.

“Not really,” the chained woman objected.

“Another word, abomination, and I’ll have you gagged,” Rohin hissed.

Sharaka shrugged and tried to scratch her shoulder with her head spikes.

“This woman is guilty of murdering more than thirty viashino and robbing them of their souls, preventing them from returning to the Fire.” Rohin heard a few gasps. Everyone had heard about Sharaka the Soul-Stealer, but there was a big difference between rumors and the declaration of a judge.

Sharaka rolled her eyes.

“In the hope that her soul may be reforged free of sin in the Fire, her body will be kept on hot coals and hammered until death,” Rohin said, gesturing to the man holding Sharaka’s chains and the woman holding the two-handed hammer. The judge snapped her fingers, and the bed of coals became bright red. “You seem to be awfully flippant at the prospect of death, abomination,” she eventually added. “Any last words?”

Sharaka laughed. “Your Kachil asked me to relay a message, actually!” A nervous murmur raised from the crowd: Kachil was a master diviner and a great leader, the tribe had been shocked when they heard of his death at the hands of a lone madwoman. Sharaka opened her mouth again, this time sounding like the old leader. “ _Strike her down, Rohin, and the plague of her existence will spread to countless tribes, on the farthest mountains._ ” Sharaka chuckled, sounding like a young woman again. “So you understand why I’m not that scared.”

Rohin forced herself steady. She couldn’t show weakness now. “You lie, abomination. You lie, you kill, you steal souls.”

Sharaka shook her head, grinning. “I may as well do, but I don’t lend my tongue just so others can lie with it. I don’t know what you’re used to, but no one in my tribe dares lie to me,” she said smugly.

“ _Your tribe?_ ” Rohin roared. “We’ve heard enough madness,” she declared, finding her balance again. “May you be reborn in Fire, free of sin.”

Scared or not, Sharaka screamed when she was pressed on the burning coals.


End file.
